Be Strong - from Watercolor for Card Makers

I'm taking a fun class, Watercolor for Card Makers, at onlinecardclasses.com.  The first day I was so inspired by the videos, I have watercolor card backgrounds all over my craft room.  Class is on hold for me for a couple of days while my evenings are filled with WHL finals (go Hawks!), but in between periods last night, I used one of those backgrounds to put together a quick card for a friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. 

That's two people in the last year in my office alone and we are a small office!  I hate that this ribbon4cure set from the Stamps of Life and the matching dies are getting this much use.  This is one set I would like to say I bought but never found a reason to use. 

Alas, I broke it out again to stamp the little ribbon, heat emboss the sentiment on vellum and add a few sequins to finish off the outside.  I stamped the "fight like a girl" sentiment on the inside for a quick card, courtesy of one of the watercolor backgrounds I had made based upon a Kristina Werner video (so love her work) from the class.  It was super fun and easy using the Lotus background stamp from Hero Arts that I bought on sale a while back but had yet to break out (at least I couldn't remember using it previously). 

Sigh, I think the next class I have to take though is one on photography (or maybe I need to adjust my schedule so that I'm taking my pictures during the day, rather than the dark night), because this picture just doesn't do the card justice.  The background is really quite a pretty swirl of yellow, orange and pink.

Fight Like a Girl - Inspired by Julie Davidson's Herringbone Faux Quilt Technique

I learned just before I left for Denver that another program manager in my office has cancer, which is just inconceivable considering there are only five of us, well four following the recent death of another co-worker.  I wanted to make a card to let her know I'm pulling for her.  Coincidentally while I was in Denver, the Stamps of Life released their new sets, including ribbon4cure.  I had to call the hubster to give my my club code because I wanted the set right away and didn't want to wait to order it when I got home. 

Strangely enough though, on Saturday I simply didn't feel like spending any time in my craft room.  At first I thought it was the headache caused by the air pressure that led to Saturday's crazy thunder and lightning show.  But yesterday, I realized that it went farther than that when the hubster and I both came up sick.  I spent all day yesterday in bed watching a marathon of "Under the Dome."  I even e-mailed in sick today because my throat was on fire and I was running a temp.  But by 2 p.m., I had to get out of bed.  I just could NOT lay there any longer, but I also found out that I have no energy to do anything else either.  I managed to stumble up the street to the mail box. But by the time I got back (seriously the mail box is one house away) and sorted through the mail and unpacked the new Sodastream that arrived, I was exhausted.  So then it was break time in the chair for more cuddling with Smoke and some crafty TV.  That's where I saw the video by the Stamps of Life announcing the new set ribbon4cure that had arrived in the mail that I picked up earlier that day.  From the video, I learned that all the profits of this stamp set go to the Susan Komen foundation and that the pink of the stamp is special for this limited release.  Now that I had bit of a nap and some inspiring information about my new set, I went into my craft room and made this card based up a video showing the herringbone faux quilt technique posted by Julie Davidson today.  I just used strips of the Lively 6x6 paper pad from Authentique to make the herringbone pattern.  I matted it on another piece of paper from that pad and made the banner from a strip from that same pad.  The sentiment from the new set was stamped on with Chocolate Chip Stampin' Up ink and then folded over to resemble a banner before I adhered it with pop dots. 

 

The inside was stamped with the large ribbon in Spun Sugar Distress Ink and the sentiment stamped on top of it with the same Chocolate Chip Stampin' Up ink.  



 

 

And that's all the energy I have tonight.  I'm going to bed.